On parenting, family, and life in general!

Detroit!

November 4, 2004Yesterday I arrived in Detroit. It was a long travel day, and I was beat when we got here, but the flights were good, and not too long, which was nice. Amanda and her boyfriend picked me up at my apartment around 6:30am, and we headed to Manchester Airport. Our flight left on time and we got to Chicago at about 12:45, Eastern time (11:45 there). Then we took off about 2 hours later, and the flight from Chicago to Detroit is only about 35 minutes long, which was VERY nice. Then we had to take a terminal to terminal shuttle to our shuttle that would take us to our hotel. We’re staying in the Marriott Renaissance Center. The whole conference is here, and this hotel is HUGE. Like… HUGE. There is a food court, a shopping mall… the lobby is on the 3rd floor of the building! There are 70 floors! Our room is on the 37th, and we’ve got a pretty decent view from here. It’s neat. Last night there was the Opening Plenary Session, with Maryann Mahaffey, ACSW (none of that probably means much to anyone else, but she has had an AMAZING life). She has done all sorts of advocate work, received many academic and achievement awards, oh, it was amazing to hear her speak. She was so funny, too, because she kept getting off on tangents. It was great.I called my parents and John when I got here, it was good to finally get to talk to them and let them know I made it safe and sound. I was feeling a little homesick last night, but I’m doing much better today. I knew I would when I got going with stuff. Now I’m just looking forward to going to bed! *laughs*

Today I went to the BPD Student Mini Conference, which was really interesting. Our first session went from 8-9am, and it was a round table discussion about what student social work organizations are doing for activities and recruitment ideas. I got some really great ideas about what to do with our organization. Then at 9:15-10:15 we did a session on where the jobs are for BSW students. That was really cool to hear, even though I already am pretty sure I know what I want to do. However, the biggest thing they were talking about is how important it is to get licensed, which is fine, but then they’re like “you HAVE to have an MSW to do anything” and that got me worried. But we’ll see. I’m going to look up requirements for things that I’m interested in when I get back home and have internet access (since it costs $9.95 a DAY here at the hotel). Then they talked about some of the fields of Social Work practice, being: aging, alcohol/substance abuse, child welfare, community/neighborhood work, corrections/criminal justice, disabilities (physical/mental), income maintenance, medical/healthcare, mental health, planning (macro level), statistics/analysis… There are a lot more too, I have them all listed in a hand out I got, along with current (as of 2001) pay rates for social workers.The next session went from 10:30-12:00. That was on the present social policies. It was interesting, in that there were so many points of view on the panel. The best quote from that panel came from Thelma Gould from Asbury College: “We have to work within the system while we work to change the system.” She talked about the move towards privatization (in prisons, healthcare, etc.) and the emphasis on compassionate conservatism and faith based services. Deneece Ferrales from Our Lady of the Lake talked about TANF policies and policies surrounding Gays and Lesbians. She gave a hand out about TANF, which I’m going to read over again tonight. Sudershan Pasupulti talke about children in foster care, and put together a great handout about some of the negative effects of foster care and parental neglect of children. Gerald Mathews talked about … well… basically his political views on everything. I have to admit, I agreed with a lot of the things he said, but some of the things he said just made my blood boil, such as how if you didn’t support a woman’s right to choose, maybe you shouldn’t be a social worker (me being pro-life). I don’t remember everything he talked about, but he had a couple of handouts about the differences between Bush and Kerry, and basically how mad he was about the outcome of the election.From 12:15-1:15 we had a luncheon session on Social Work in the Future. That was interesting, because they talked about the use of bilingual social workers, and also about the greater need for technology in our line of work. They talked about how great immersion programs could be in becoming somewhat fluent in another language, and starting to understand other cultures, especially where Caucasians are not ever forced to become “bicultural” like Black Americans, Hispanics and Asian Americans.From 2:45 – 4:15 we had a panel talk about the disabled, what their needs are and what social workers are doing for them. It was ironic, actually, because one of the Dr. Rebecca Bolinger, the first speaker, is in a wheelchair and she couldn’t access the platform, there were only stairs to get up to it! To sum up what she said, she said that we need to know resources for the disabled, just like for any other part of our practice. Dr. Bonnie Zetick from LaSalle University discussed cognitive disabilities. She explained that the strengths perspective was developed because of cognitive disabilities. She also mentioned Howard Gardner’s multiple learning styles. Dr. Janice Wells from Winthrop University talked about social work students who themselves have a disability of some sort and what sort of resources we should access. The ADA states that an “Individual must have a physical or mental disability that substantially limits major life activies.” She said that students must have proper documentation, but that students are often afraid to seek resources (fear of it being on their record, fear of discrimination, they may not see themselves as having a disability, they don’t see the benefits, and they don’t want to be patronized). Dr. Ike Adams from Asbury College gave a great case study about a woman named Linda, who was of Korean decent (parents immigrated to the US), she was totally blind and had a guide dog named Nacho. It was an amazing case, to say the least.The last session of the day was on Spirituality and the Code of Ethics. Dr. Bruce Schleider (Union College) basically said that religion is “the horse that gets us to the water,” and that spirituality is our connection with God, as we understand Him. In social work, the code of ethics is the horse. He said that the main principles of the code of ethics are: service, social justice, dignity and worth, importance of human relations, integrity, competence, self determination and responsibility to clients, colleges, agency, profession and society. Deb Daehn Zellmer recommended the book Spirituality Diversity in Social Work. I don’t think I’m going to get it, but it could be interesting. She talked about a study she did that was done with masters level students all over the age of 26, and she found that they were more likely to agree with the statement “I am a spiritual person” than “I am a religious person” and more likely to examine ones on spirituality than be religious when working with others. Sandra Doe said that we have to allow spirituality to become a part of the helping process.Tonight I bought a book at the exhibitors tables called Days in the Lives of Social Workers, which is one that I’d been wanting to get since January, so that’s cool….Now I’m just gonna do some homework and crash. Night.

November 6, 2004Yesterday, the conference went well. I sat in on a session from 8-9 am about learning rural behavior through music. It was an interesting idea, in that if you really take time to listen to the lyrics of songs, that one can learn a lot about what is considered “the norm” in rural communities. I didn’t see how it related to today’s rural communities though, because the songs we were listening to were dated back (at most) 150 years or so. After that, I did my volunteer time, steering people from Brulé A and B to either Nicolet B or DaVinci. For 2 hours. Fortunately, my time doing that was not all bad, because, despite the sign posted in front of Brulé, people were still going in! Go figure. So I was able to steer them in the right direction. And for that, I got a certificate of appreciation! I should frame it. It says my name, the dates and “Baccalaureate Program Directors” on it, so it looks impressive.  After that, I took a little bit of time to vege, then I found Martha, and we grabbed lunch. It was nice to have time to sit and chat with her. We talked about things we had learned at the conference, and we also talked about our program, and how I was doing in it and some of my personal beliefs on things. It was a good lunch with her. After that, I sat in on a session about a study done on corporal punishment, which was really interesting. Nothing found was too much of a shock, but one of the things I did find interesting was she had the definitions of what was considered mild corporal punishment ranging to severe physical abuse. After that session, I skipped out on the next one, because I was tired, so I just wandered around the building and started getting my stuff together for the trip home today. Then I changed before the last session I went to for the day, and that was on an organization called Active Minds. This organization is currently on 14 college campuses, and they work to promote the awareness of mental disorders, and advocate for those who have them. It was a very interesting program to hear about, and if I weren’t graduating at the end of the year, it would have been something I would have pursued getting at UNH. After the last session, Amanda and I went up to the room, did a little more packing, I called Dave T. and John, and then she and I headed out for our “big night out on the town” (a.k.a. going to Hard Rock Café Detroit). We had a good time, the food was excellent (as always), but unfortunately, it didn’t work out to get together with Dave. That was a bummer, but at least he’ll be home for Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. I am hopefully going to get to see him one of those times, because it’s been quite a while since I saw him. Anyway, Amanda and I took the people mover to the restaurant. The people mover is basically and elevated train, like they have in Chicago (you know, you seem them on E.R. all the time!). Then we walked back from the restaurant to the hotel, and pretty much vegged for the rest of the night. I was passed out by a little after 10, which was good, because we were getting up early today to meet Martha for breakfast at the River Café.It was nice of Martha to suggest that, she even paid for us to have breakfast, which was awesome. The food was excellent, so I was very grateful. It was the healthiest meal I’d eaten this entire trip, another reason to be grateful! After that, Martha took off for a session, and Amanda and I wandered around Detroit for a while. We walked up to Greektown, took a few more pictures, and then headed off to the hotel again, because I wanted to go to an 11am session on marketing the program, since Martha wanted to go to a different one. That was an interesting session, I got some really good ideas to pass on to her, so I can wait to sit down with her and have a little one on one chat with her about it.Now I’m on the plane from Chicago to Manchester, and I can’t wait to get home. We left the hotel at noon, got to the hotel at around 12:30, and our flight didn’t take off until 3:10. That was not fun. So I wandered around the terminal for a little while, called John and my parents to tell them I was at the airport, then snacked on some peanut butter crackers and Snapple. The flight was fine, just about an hour long into Chicago. Then we had an hour and a half wait at Midway, so I called my mom and John again to tell them I was in Chicago, then just started working on my book report that I have due on Wednesday on Turning Stones, and got to talking to the people that were waiting to get on the same flight who were originally from Finland! Now they live just north of Bath, ME.So far, the flight home has been uneventful. I need to get back to work on my book report before my battery runs too low, so I’m gonna get back to that now. Peace!